Slide Show: America’s Day of Action: US Uncut and Solidarity with Wisconsin

February 28, 2011

On Saturday, February 26, progressives carried out a major day of action as protesters from coast to coast joined Wisconsin workers in solidarity against right-wing attacks on union organizing rights, and in fifty cities across the country, the grassroots organization US Uncut debuted as a serious, mobilized effort to fight corporate tax dodging. The combined energy of these protests has fueled a rebirth of impassioned activism, with demonstrators demanding a new focus on economic justice to replace the “cuts, cuts, cuts” mantra the right has used to dominate the national conversation for years.

With its first national Day of Action, US Uncut launched a coordinated effort to educate the public and drum up support for the movement. Inspired in part by Johann Hari’s Nation essay, "How to Build a Progressive Tea Party," US Uncut occupied Bank of America branches from Los Angeles to New York, Boston to Chicago, drawing attention to the fact that though the bank took in $45 billion in bailout funds in 2008 and 2009, it paid no federal income taxes whatsoever in 2009.

With offshore tax havens and other evasions, Bank of America has successfully avoided paying their membership fee for a civilized society, leaving workers to pick up the tab. “All week, dramatic photos and video have been rolling in from Madison, showing workers engaged in a desperate struggle to cling onto their basic rights to organize,” The Nation’s Allison Kilkenny reported from the New York Uncut action. “The protesters at US Uncut drew parallels between their own struggles and those of the activists in Wisconsin. Again and again I heard protesters wondering aloud why Republicans were calling for austerity measures when a wealth of revenue lays just off the US coast.”

The photographs in this slide show all came from generous Nation readers, who responded to our call for images by sending in their vivid pictures of Saturday’s protests. To have your pictures featured in a Nation slide show, add them to our flickr group pool.